Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

291 First, on December 3 rd , the World Day for NO Use of Pesticides was declared. Its establishment has contributed to generating greater international awareness about indiscriminate use of these substances. Moreover, the tragedy led to the creation of institutions for healing and assisting victims and their descendants. Many present malformations and genetic damage. For example, “The Bhopal Medical Appeal” makes various donations to organizations such as the Chingari Rehabilitation Center (which provides medical assistance to affected Indian children) or the Sambhavna clinic. Finally, more globally, the fateful disaster served, according to some authors, as a catalyst for improving international legislation on safety management and prevention of chemical accidents (Kahn, 2007). Even international labor legislation could be improved as International Labor Organization Convention No. 174 configured a new typology of disaster, the so-called “Major Accident”, in order to provide greater protection for workers and vulnerable populations working or residing near industrial plants (Uriel, 2019). Seveso Disaster In July 1976, at a small chemical plant in the municipality of Seveso (Italy), located 25 km from the city of Milan, a fire broke out that caused the release of significant volumes of TCDD dioxin. This is considered by experts as one of the most lethal substances known and is one of the components of “Agent Orange”, widely used in the Vietnam War by the US army (Kletz, 2001:103- 109). It was also used as an inhibitor in massive forest fires and has only recently ceased to be used in Chile and many other countries. The fire, attributable to human error, resulted in a toxic cloud over 5 kilometers in diameter, but the collective panic it generated was likely the most difficult factor to manage. The uncontrolled reaction of the population rendered existing safety procedures completely irrelevant since they were not designed to deal with an event like this (Kletz, 1998). What consequences did this disaster have in terms of damage? First, no direct human mortality was associated with the toxic event. The most common injuries were chloracne caused by dioxin. The community had to sacrifice over 80,000 birds and poultry to prevent dioxin from entering the food chain. Finally, scientific publications up until 2009 show increases in cancer incidence rates in the province (Bertazzi et al., 2001; Eskenazi et al., 2004).